PART I

THE SEEKER AFTER SALVATION

The Search
(1703-1735)

IT is, difficult to be humble. Even if you aim at
humility, there is no guarantee that when you have
attained the state you will not be proud of the feat.
But not everybody considers it a virtue, and as a
small boy at Charterhouse, John Wesley had no
great opinion of it. On the contrary, he thought
it well to dominate the smaller fry, whom he would
gather around him to exhort and admonish ; and
when asked why he did not join the boys of his own
age, he answered, " Better to rule in hell than
serve in heaven ! " Pride is one stumbling-block
to the Christian life ; another is too great a fond-
ness for reasoning. Wesley would accept nothing
that his mind would not sanction, and from his
1 earliest days insisted upon passing every suggestion
through a fine sieve of thought. Even when asked
if he would have some more bread, he used to say,
" Thank you ; I will think of it," a precociously
" methodic " system (it is not too early to use the
word) which exasperated his father. " I profess,
sweetheart," he shot out tartly at Mrs. Wesley,

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